“You’re not like him,” Aloran said. “You could never be like him. And I could never be false, not to you.” His hand seemed almost too incredulous to obey him, but he insisted, and opened it between them. “I trust you.”
Tamelera did not place her palm over his. She seized his hand as if it were some kind of marvel, caressing it, turning it, kissing it. The eagerness of her lips was perfect permission, and his body responded with such intensity that even his voice trembled.
“Tamelera . . .”
She looked up in a transport of delight, and began to kiss her way up his arm. Cautiously, so as not to frighten her, he slid his arm beneath hers and pulled her closer.
Tamelera launched herself at him, knocking him to the floor in a deluge of kisses.
The weight of her body was wonderful. Her lips were sweet, urgent, everywhere—on his face, his neck, his chest while he tried with his own to catch them. At last, he caught her against him, and her lips fastened on his.
Closed. Had she never even learned how to kiss?
Gently, he stroked the nape of her neck, and pulled her mouth more strongly against his, letting his lips part slightly. Tamelera caught her breath. On the next kiss he allowed her lips to press his mouth open, and didn’t release until a taste of her slipped in. Raising his tongue to it, he discovered she had done the same—such sweetness! Her questing tongue drew him deep into the kiss. He lifted her body more fully over him and tightened his arms around her.
Tamelera gasped and pulled away.
Had it been too much? Aloran sat up slowly, with a gaze-gesture of apology—if Sirin was merciful, then his desires wouldn’t have pushed him ahead of hers.
Tamelera reached behind her head with both hands, struggled a few seconds, then dropped one arm and twisted to reach up her back from underneath. She cast him a mischievous smile.
Then it hit him: she was undressing herself.
To sit and watch her do it made his fingers tingle in sympathy, but its very inappropriateness was delicious. She pulled her gown down over her shoulders and pushed it to her waist, then to the floor, shifting it under her bottom. One at a time, she pulled her legs out, so she sat in her white shift in a pool of dawning silk.
“My Lady,” he whispered. He ached to hold her again.
She walked up to him on her bare knees. “Sit still.”
To comply required some discipline, especially after he determined her intentions. She had no trouble undoing the closures of his jacket, but the feeling of her hands sneaking underneath to push it off his shoulders wound him so tight he could scarcely breathe—and if the shirt was worse, it was nothing compared to the trousers. Thank Heile she let him unlace his own boots, to keep his mind from exploding in sheer incredulity.
The sight of him in nothing but his underwear seemed to astonish her. She stared at him with her breast heaving, hands pressed together over her nose and mouth.
Aloran tried to speak calmly. “I’ve given you permission to touch. You needn’t ask again. Do you—wish, to continue?”
“I do wish,” she said. “Gods, just look at you! It’s just that—Aloran, I hardly recognize myself.”
“I recognize you,” he assured her. “You’ve always been passionate. I saw it the day I met you.”
She blushed. “That day, I saw—the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. But I was so angry. I tried so hard not to see who you really were. I’m sorry—I see you now.” She laid the palm of her hand on his chest and stroked a line down to his navel; her eyes went further. Pleasure thrummed down his nerves and his hips lifted involuntarily. He opened his arm to her.
She moved into it at once, turning her head up for his kiss while he explored her with his hands. He slowed when approaching the lower edge of her shift, but her eager fingers stripped away his remaining clothes, urging him onward. How many times had he removed this very garment of silk? This time she was no longer simply naked, she was his. This soft skin, these full breasts and curving hips—every part of her so familiar, and now a revelation. Slowly, softly, he coaxed her passion with his fingers, easing her down to the floor beside him. Her breath came now with small delicious sounds the like of which he’d never heard. Dizzied, he bent into a kiss that quickly grew to a drink of the heavens, and her hands moved over him, trying to pull him onto her.
But they must not go any further. If there were some limit, beyond which lay pain and fear, he must not find it. It was his duty to protect her—but now her hands took full possession of him, pushing him beyond speech.
Aloran gasped.
Tamelera gave a full-throated moan.
That sound penetrated defenses he hadn’t known he had. Before he knew it, he was inside her, blinded by pleasure, locked in a tangle of her, and she was crying out his name. “Tamelera,” he answered in confusion, but the pleasure intensified with the word, growing with his rhythm until it poured out of him unbidden, “Tamelera, Tamelera!”
For a long time they rested together, sharing peace in small gentle touches. At last, he convinced her to let him go long enough to lift her from the floor into her bed. She wouldn’t release his arm.
“But, Lady . . .”
“Sleep with me,” Tamelera said. “I know how to play my part for the watchers. But here in this room you can be safe with me.”
“All right.”
She moved toward the center of the bed. Aloran climbed in beside her, and soon she fell asleep on his shoulder, her arm draped across his chest. He gazed up at a wysp drifting in and out of the canopy above.
A sudden terrible misgiving struck him.
Safe with her? Oh, Sirin and Eyn be kind tonight, and keep her safe from him! Let the time be wrong—even let Grobal Garr have been right that she was no longer able to bear children . . .
In giving the last of his medication to her son, he’d left her unprotected.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
About the Music
Tagaret sat in the audience, watching his brother, holding his breath. At first, it seemed like he’d done it, that the price of telling Benél had actually been worth it. Nekantor came to the podium when he was introduced, but he looked more than half-manic, and when he opened his mouth, he made no sense, talking about Father, and Sorn, and votes and patterns . . . Then he crumpled to the floor, half-hidden by the podium.
That should have been it. That should have been it!
Except then, from the seat to his right, Pyaras murmured, “Poor Nekantor.”
Tagaret gaped at him. Poor Nekantor? It was the single last thing he would have expected to hear out of his cousin’s mouth.
Pyaras’ dark brows drew together. “Wait, hadn’t you heard, either? I’m so sorry!”
“No,” Tagaret said. This couldn’t be happening. “No . . .”
Reyn gently squeezed his left arm. “Oh, Tagaret, what a way to learn your father has joined the stars.”
“Elinda keep him,” Gowan added.
“No,” Tagaret repeated. But suddenly it was all so clear: everything he’d done had been for nothing. Nekantor had fallen apart in front of the entire Pelismara Society—and nobody had noticed. When he looked at the stage again, Arissen Karyas had got him up into a chair, and Nek was crying. All the murmurs in the crowd had turned to pity. Oh, poor Nekantor, what a loss to such a keen young candidate, what terrible news to endure when he was already under such pressure.
Tagaret clenched his fists. Gnash him, the bastard toad!
Before they even began voting, he knew. Knew, with a certainty that made him sick.
“Nekantor of the First Family, can you come and stand by me?”
Tagaret surged to his feet in horror. All around him, others were standing, too, clapping and cheering. There were shouts of dismay, of course, but the First Family had always been well-regarded, and that obviously hadn’t changed.
Nothing ha
d changed.
“Holy Mai,” he breathed. “Merciful Heile, help me.”
“Are you all right?” asked Reyn.
“Tagaret,” said Gowan reassuringly, “I know it’s not what you wanted, but politics is like that.”
Tagaret wheeled on him. “Fine,” he snapped. “Clap for him. Gowan, Reyn, Pyaras, all of you clap—protect yourselves, gnash it! Never let him suspect that you doubted him, much less that you hated him, not even for a second.”
“Tagaret—hey . . .” Reyn reached a hand to his shoulder.
Tagaret jerked away. He pushed past Pyaras and shoved out of the row, up the aisle and through the arch, took one look at the celebratory decorations in the ballroom and bolted for the nearest outside door. A few steps into the dark gravel paths of the shrub gardens, he stopped and tried to breathe.
“Sir,” Imbati Kuarmei said, startling him. Of course she was at her station—he’d simply forgotten she was there. “What may I do for you?”
“Nothing, Kuarmei,” Tagaret said. Nothing could be done to change this. He glanced back at the ballroom windows. The Pelismara Society had begun to fill the space in their colored suits and gowns, rejoicing at the end of the Selection, celebrating the beginning of a new era under Eminence Herin and Heir Nekantor. Except nothing about it was new at all. Tagaret’s feet moved on their own, faster and faster out of the gardens, then out the northern grounds gate and into the city.
He wanted Della so badly. She’d sacrificed so much, accepting censure and abuse in return for escape from her nightmare betrothal. How could he tell her that Nekantor had won because of the Sixth Family’s vote? That the worst had come because of what they did? Yet he must, somehow . . .
He found his way to the right circumference easily enough, then hesitated; his memory of the path to find her was too vague. Which radius had the Arissen driver turned into? Ah, this was it—he accelerated into a run as he turned the corner, and nearly collided with a person who came seemingly out of nowhere. A startled face glanced up at him: pale, with a shiny burn scar on the left cheekbone.
“Vant?” Tagaret said.
The person bolted away across the street and vanished—into the Akrabitti way.
Tagaret blinked after him. That had been Vant, hadn’t it? He must have come here after finishing at Della’s house not long ago . . . but what in Varin’s name was he doing going down an undercaste alleyway?
Name of Bes, what if this was his fault? What if he’d gone and scared the boy again, and sent him into a panic? If Vant got lost—or hurt . . .
Tagaret crossed the street and ran after him. “Vant! Wait!”
Vant didn’t seem to hear. Tagaret ran fast at first, following the boy’s retreating back, but soon had to slow to a walk to avoid stinking puddles and tangles of trash. Gods, just look at this place. This was Pelismara—it was the truth lying behind every noble house, even the Residence, though no one there would open their eyes to see it. This darkness was the fear in every heart, whispering of illness and death. His own father had smelled like this, festering with the rot of coercion and betrayal. And the tangled pipes on the walls were as twisted as his brother’s mind. He couldn’t let Vant fall victim to it.
Kuarmei simply followed him as he pushed on.
The alleyway stopped abruptly. A glimmer of silver light grew ahead, and Tagaret found himself dumped into a tiny open space, a sort of courtyard squeezed between the arms of a hulking concrete building that loomed three stories high. A single street lamp stood at the center of the space, but it was eyeless and dark. The only light came from three floating wysps, and from a shinca hidden somewhere nearby, whose light issued from two arched tunnels under the curved body of the building. Silver light cast misshapen shadows outwards through the iron stairs and railings. There was a strange mechanical hissing sound in the air, and a deep rumbling in the ground under his feet.
There were also people.
Three figures in dark hoods emerged from a shadowed tunnel beneath the building’s arm, moving warily like feral animals.
“Sir,” Kuarmei whispered.
Mercy—Vant wasn’t the only one in trouble.
Tagaret turned, but two more Akrabitti blocked his way back into the alley: one awkward and gangly, the other a giant larger than any Arissen he’d ever seen.
Fear closed around his throat. How many people could Kuarmei fight at once?
Then a child’s voice cried from somewhere above, in crazed excitement. “Look, all ye look! The gang’s nabbed a Grobal!”
The cry set off a rockfall. Footsteps thumped—strange, accented voices shouted—doors burst wide all along the building. Bright yellow rectangles silhouetted hooded people of all sizes who crowded to the railings and peered down.
They were going to die.
“Kuarmei, I’m so sorry,” Tagaret whispered. The thought of leaving Vant made him sick, but what choice did they have? “How can we get out?”
“Stay by me, sir,” Kuarmei replied with admirable calm. “We’ll have to attempt the alleyway.”
The giant undercaste man gave a gravelly laugh. “Took a wrong path, all you did,” he growled. “Now all we will put that to good use.”
“There’s nothing all we won’t put to good use,” a thin voice agreed behind them.
How would an Akrabitti put a musician’s apprentice to use? Horrifying thought . . .
“Let’s go,” said Kuarmei. Hands raised, she advanced toward the pair blocking the alleyway. Tagaret followed close behind, but suddenly another hooded Akrabitti darted from the shadows and placed himself directly in their path.
With his back to them.
The new Akrabitti shouted at the giant man. “Lights and fires, Griss! Have ye wysp-madness now? These folk carry no orsheth!”
Kuarmei stopped, though her hands were still ready for the attack. Tagaret held his breath.
“Let us see, then,” the giant man growled. “Look and see, now. Highers are rich.”
“Ye’re a fool, Griss. Melumalai carry orsheth, yes, and Kartunnen, too, but these? Ye’d search all them and find plastic squares, no use to ye or anyone here, only to one by name of Grobal! Or would ye take his coat maybe? And fence it how? One step in the gray market with a prize like that, and Arissen would snap yer family whole. Ye stay all them here, and ye’ll soon see how many police swarm after.” He stamped his foot. “Not a bargain we’re keen for, so leave all them be, unless ye fancy to see the Pit too soon.”
His words doused the excitement among the watchers. People began to slip back behind their doors; the crowds at the railings thinned and soon were gone. Even the folk on the ground level gradually vanished into the dirty shadows, until the only ones left in the tiny courtyard were giant Griss and their strange defender, still staring each other down.
“Shinca-fire,” Griss growled at last. He lunged away to one side and vanished around the stub end of the building at a lumbering run.
The boy who had defended them remained unmoving, breathing hard.
“Akrabitti?” Tagaret said, uncertainly. “Thank you. Is there some way I can repay you for saving us? You’re right that I have no money . . .” Too right, when he thought about it. How would an Akrabitti know about expense markers, anyway? “Maybe, if you’d give me your name . . .”
The Akrabitti ran.
“Kuarmei, catch him.”
Kuarmei flashed him a look, but darted away after the boy into one of the bright tunnels underneath the building. Tagaret ran after, emerging on the back side just as Kuarmei caught their fugitive. Here, barely a skimmer’s length separated the back of the concrete building from a vast face of cracked and dripping rock, embedded with an enormous circle of iron grillwork. Incongruously, a shinca pierced upward through the space, filling it with warmth and light.
Kuarmei brought the Akrabitti boy up close to the shinca. He was a pitiful
creature in the light. His shoes were falling apart; he wore ill-fitting clothes in a stained, dirty gray, and of course there was the dark gray hood. The boy covered his face with both hands, quivering with such terror that his knees were like to give way.
Tagaret bit his lip. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Kuarmei to catch him—this was an awfully nasty way to thank someone.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I know you put yourself at risk to help us. All I really want to do is thank you properly.”
“Mercy,” the boy mumbled. “Have mercy, sir.”
“Please, you don’t need to hide. Just give me your name.”
There was something strange about the boy’s hands. Of course they were filthy, shoved up beneath the edge of his dark hood, but their shape was strangely refined. Such long and graceful fingers—
Tagaret grabbed the boy’s wrist and pulled his hand away from his face.
There was a shiny burn scar on his left cheekbone.
Sweet Heile have mercy. “Y—you?” Tagaret stammered, disbelieving. “Vant?”
The boy fell limp in Kuarmei’s grasp. “Grobal Tagaret, sir, don’t hurt me,” he begged. “Don’t have me killed.”
It was. The boy he’d thought he’d come in here to rescue—his nose, his scar, even his voice, suddenly changed from the rough accent of his hooded fellows back to the careful diction he’d used in the concert hall, and at Della’s house.
“I’d never get you killed,” Tagaret said. “You know me—I think. How can you be here?”
“I live here,” Vant said miserably.
“But how can you?”
Vant gulped. “Kartunnen Ryanin, he—he dresses me in fancy clothes, and paints my face. Calls me apprentice. Takes me places. Gives me orsheth. And p-paper, to write on.”
His first thought was that Ryanin was terribly generous. But that was more than generous—it was dangerous. Not simply to give charity to an Akrabitti from the street, but to crossmark him and bring him to the Eminence’s Residence? “Why in Varin’s name would he do that?”
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